The Morgue
by FireAndIceAndRage
Summary: "Soon, she would be free of the world that caused her so much pain. But there was one variable of the equation she forgot to calculate. That variable, as always, was Sherlock Holmes." Slight AU. WARNING: Suicide attempt, mature topic. My first fic!


**My first fic...please excuse any errors, it's late and it's been a long week! XD Feedback would be lovely and I'd love any advice! I'm new to this so there is obviously room to grow!**

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own anything you might recognise.**

**WARNING: Suicide attempt, mature topic.**

* * *

All in all, Molly Hooper had lived a hard life.

She'd been a lonely little kid, teased and taunted once and a while, but didn't that happen to everyone? No one lived their life perfectly, and she knew that. Maybe it was her loneliness, maybe it was her parent's constant fighting, or their death years later, but something broke her. Something on the inside that should never be messed with, the single thread of sanity that held her life together simply snapped. At such a young age, she was thinking dark thoughts that no young girl should ever think. Of course the therapy never helped, it only made her feel unwanted, desperate, pathetic.

But years passed, and she lived on. Granted, those years were full of a seething pain and a desperate burning for an end to the darkness that seeped through her walls, consumed her from the inside out, but she lived on. And maybe, she thought, 'lived' was not an appropriate term, for she was hardly living. Molly had survived, but it would be a lie if she were to tell anyone that those years she had felt alive. Four times before she was twenty years old, she had nearly ended it all, but somehow she pulled through. Somehow, after the drama was all over, she met Sherlock Holmes and for years she was happy and though she fought through his constant ridicules and harmful words, it was so much better than before. Though sometimes he disregarded her and treated her like nothing, he gave her hope.

The fifth time she had tried to end it, everything had been so different. Sherlock had left for two years, leaving Molly on her own and a man to come along and propose to her. They were happy, until Sherlock had returned to muck it all up, and he wasn't even sorry. Though he denied it, Molly knew Sherlock was jealous, but that hadn't stopped Tom from saying such horrible things about Sherlock, about how Molly was sick and cruel and didn't care and that time, she believed every word. It happened in the morgue, an operating knife had just been too tempting, but Sherlock had miraculously found her. Day in and day out from then on became hard, but Sherlock always knew when she needed him. After a while, he never left her side, and all was perfect in her world. All but one thing.

The guilt.

The guilt was everywhere, it consumed her and forced her to believe it's every sickening, twisted word. She didn't deserve Sherlock, not after her selfish act. She was upset so she tried to kill herself, what could be more selfish? In the end, all she ever did was hurt him, and though he told her constantly, she hardly believed that she was important to anyone. Her life was so pathetic, the battle between life and death, dragging others down with her. The guilt drove her mad, and it all lead down to the sixth time of her life that Molly Hooper wished to stop existing.

It would have worked. It hardly took any research, and she was a doctor after all, and soon she figured the perfect combination of medications to put her out of her misery for good. Soon, she would be free of the world that caused her so much pain. But there was one variable of the equation she forgot to calculate. That variable, as always, was Sherlock Holmes.

* * *

Molly stood leaning over the sink, grasping the counter until her knuckles turned white. Never before had she guessed that this method would be so slow, and it hurt. First a fever broke, she felt herself burning away to the minute, her face soon clammy and pallid and she felt sick. Everything was spinning and it was so hard to stand, if she let go of the counter she knew she would fall because she no longer knew which way was up or down.

But in a few dizzying seconds, the door clicked open silently and Sherlock Holmes stood in the doorway, watching her oddly. Molly was going to be sick. This was not supposed to happen, she hadn't known he was coming and now he had to watch her die. Sherlock, on the other hand, didn't realise what she had done until he noticed the empty pill capsules on the table, a glass of water cracked on the floor as if she had knocked it over in a fight for consciousness. And he felt his stomach twist on a knot as he figured it all out. Molly Hooper was dying.

Why now, after all this time, what had she done? Molly didn't even appear to recognise his presence, and he knew something was seriously wrong. In a matter of moments and a few long strides he was at her side, the entire time, one thought buzzed around his brain. Why? She was happy. He had promised not to let her be alone, he, of all people, swore to protect her. She was happy. Why?

"Molly? What have you done?" His fierce voice was hoarse, and full of what sounded like emotion. And he supposed it was. He took her arms and turned her to face him, and he knew for sure he did have a heart. Because when he saw the dead look in her eyes, he felt it deep inside.

"Sh...Sherlock..." Her hallow voice whispered, a tunnel vision creeping into her eyes, though she could see him holding her clear as day. "I...I'm s-sorry-"

"Sh, don't speak." He took her into his arms, and it all felt like a strange dream. Here he was holding Molly Hooper, who could very well be dead. "It's not your fault. I'm sorry. I'm here."

It was surreal, him holding her as she started to cry. She had wanted this to be quick and painless, but it turned out dying was a lot more complicated than she had made it out to be. But if she had to go, this wasn't a bad way at all, to slip away in Sherlock's strong arms.

Then the pain came. It shattered in her mind yet it hit her stomach like she had been shot, she felt everything crashing down as she cried out. The only things to stop her from hitting the floor were those strong arms, catching her and lying her down as his voice rang in her ringing ears. "_Molly...Molly, please...Molly..._"

It grew faint and more desperate by the minute, and within moments she faded, the mind shattering pain somehow dulled by the feeling of his arms around her. If she had to go, this wasn't a bad way to go, because he was with her.

* * *

Everything was white.

The world was simple and pure, pristine and clean, a shocking sight for weary eyes. All she knew was white. She had emerged from a dark hearse to enter a bright world, and it was all she knew, all she was. It came before any other sense, any other sign of life. She was no longer blind, she lived in a world of purity and pace and she never wanted to come down.

But it wouldn't last. Soon, the smell was all to familiar, the sound of monitors beeping made it hard to concentrate on being peaceful. It was so calm, so quiet, no one was there to tell her she wasn't good enough and there was no reason to even think about it yet. It was so nice, so undisturbed, so peaceful, but it would pass. People came in, poked and prodded her, clambered around the monitors and torn down the walls she had tried so desperately to preserve.

They tried speaking to her, they tried offering her food, they tried getting her to react to anything. But the best they would get from Molly Hooper was a turn of the head, a few blinks, a sad glance away from the inevitable questions on the table.

Molly didn't feel anything. She simply existed, nothing more. She would have stayed that way forever, until Sherlock Holmes came into her life.

It started like it did everyone else. The man knelt down by her side, probably to ask her why. That's all anyone ever wanted to know. Then he'd ask how she was feeling, and she would never reply. Though if she could, she supposed she would simply lie, say that everything was fine, because if she told the truth...

"You were dead." The low voice snapped her back to reality, dull eyes blinking once. "Your heart stopped for seven minutes. It's a miracle you pulled through, at least that's what they like to say."

Sherlock watched her eyes flutter shut, a tear run down her face, the most responsive she'd been since the incident. Her attempts had worked and only their technology had been able to bring her back. She had been so close.

"I'm not going to ask you why. I thought you were past all of this, you were happy. Clearly I've failed. I only wanted to help you. If you feel like you're not good enough, if you feel like any of this is your fault...it's not true. _Please. _Talk to me."

His low voice painted a picture in her mind and a wave of relief washed over her at his words. It wasn't her fault. "Sherlock," she simply stated, her voice raspy, her throat dry due to days unconscious.

"Are you okay? And don't just say you are because you want me to think you are. I know that's not true. How do you _really_ feel?"

"I'm fine...Sherlock, really-"

"No." It was a simple word, meaning so much more. No, she wasn't really fine. No, it wasn't okay. No, and he knew it wasn't the truth.

"_I want to die_."

"Molly-"

"You wanted the truth."

"Just listen to-"

"I can't do anything right. I've messed up your life enough and I thought it would be easier if I just stopped being such a burden to you, but it turns out I can't even do that right."

"Molly Hooper, _listen_ to me!" She shrunk back into the covers of the stiff, warm hospital bed. "I'm sorry. But when will you see that you've never been a burden? That you'll never _be_ a burden? I don't follow you around because someone's making me. When have I ever done something I didn't want to do? I'm constantly by your side because I want to. I need you. You've always been there and I've always trusted you, I don't deserve you. It's my fault that were here right now, and before you think you're not good enough for anyone, stop and think. If you're good enough for me, you're good enough for anyone."

Molly looked up into his icy blue eyes, his dark curls casting shadows over his pale face, and one thing was crystal clear. Behind the fierce look, the gaze he held told her that he had a heart. He cared. Everyone thought it was impossible, but in that moment, she knew Sherlock Holmes had feelings. She could read it in him, she knew by the way he reached for her hand that he was afraid. He may not want to admit it, but he was afraid.

Sherlock didn't want to admit it. He couldn't. But he was afraid. Somewhere in his stone, frozen heart, there existed a ray of light, a beam of warmth dedicated to the one and only Molly Hooper. Molly Hooper, who was lying on a bright hospital bed, hardly alive. Molly Hooper, the mousy little pathologist willing to travel to the ends of the earth for him. Molly Hooper, who didn't think she was good enough. Sherlock was a machine, he didn't have feelings. He wasn't passionate about anything but the work he did, but Molly Hooper was proving that all wrong, breaking down those stone walls he hid under day by day.

"Sherlock...thank you. For being there, when I...I suppose I owe you my life. I'm not okay, you know that. But neither are you. You look sad. You pretend not to have any emotions but you hurt. You pretend not to be like everyone else, but you feel pain. And that's more human than anything. You saved me life, and if you're going to pretend that doesn't mean everything..." Molly saw then that the look in his eyes was not defiance, not anger or ignorance. It was soft and kind, up full if worry, a look she assumed no one had ever seen from him before and never would again.

Sherlock knew she was exerting herself by staying awake to speak to him, but he was, for the first time, lost in the moment. Molly Hooper had been dead and she was still worried about him. The concept of love was always a strange thing to Sherlock, But if that wasn't love, he didn't know what was. "I haven't been fair to you. You do so much for me, and you don't know his important you really are. Forgive me, I'm new to these feelings..." He started with a sigh, the words seemingly foreign on his tongue. But Molly continued to look up at him adoringly, and again something stirred in his chest. "I don't know if I'm capable of love, Molly Hooper. But I know I would be lost without you. You sacrifice your time, your job, your sanity for me, and I know I can be an ignorant arse sometimes, but I don't know where I would be if I didn't have you with me. I've seen so much death, and I suppose that's alright, just as long as you don't take up a spot in the morgue for good. You're the only thing alive in a world full if death, and you...you make me feel alive. And I suppose that's as close to love I'll ever get."

Molly's breathing hitched, the heart monitors spiked in the back of the room, and she was utterly speechless. Though she couldn't help but smile when she felt his long, calloused hand cup her face, and almost laughed as he continued to speak.

"And now look what you've done, you've turned me into a sappy, cliché character. Well done, Dr. Hooper."

On any normal day, she would have come up with something clever to respond with, but when she opened her eyes she was met with Sherlock tilting her face up to his. Any such comment was lost in the back of her throat as he pulled her in and he pressed his lips to hers.

It was everything she could have imagined and more. It wasn't simply a kiss, it was a promise. As his warm lips caressed hers, it told her that he was there. The emotion he poured into her was more then a simple kiss, it told her that she would never be alone again. They would never be okay, but they would have each other.

And for the first time that she could remember, Molly Hooper was purely happy.


End file.
